Fenwick Flat-Pack KitsWalker Series
TO Kit design teams
RE Prototype walker for the Walker Series kit line
DUE
The ask
We sell build-it-yourself kits that ship flat in a padded envelope: sheets of thin laser-cut wood, a bag of hardware, and a motor. Our wheeled cars sell well. Customers keep asking for something that walks.
Design us a walking robot prototype that we can turn into a kit. It has to walk on legs, run off the same motor and battery pack as every other kit we sell, and go together with standoffs and bolts.
The hook
Every kit box has a 15-second clip of the robot walking. The walker that covers the most ground in that clip goes on the box.
Requirements
Between 2 and 6 legs, and only feet touch the floor: no wheels, no rollers. One blue biaxial TT motor with metal gears drives every leg. Power is four 1.2 V AA rechargeable batteries, the same holder that ships in every Fenwick kit. An on/off switch so a customer can stop it without pulling batteries. Links cut from about 1/8 in wood panels, because that's what fits in the envelope. Joints made from spacers or standoffs, threaded or with a bolt through. Gears laser cut or 3D printed. Grip on the feet from things customers already have at home: rubber bands, hot glue, or similar. The whole robot fits inside 30 × 30 × 30 cm.
On the test
We start every walker behind a line, flip the switch, and stop the clock at 15 seconds. We measure straight ahead from the line to the rearmost foot, because a robot that wanders off sideways doesn't look good on a box. Each team gets its best of 3 runs.
Deliver to us
- Research and brainstorm sketches — due
- Your chosen leg linkage, modeled in the MIT Linkage Designer, with degrees of freedom, Grashof, and transmission angle worked out — due
- An Onshape model of the links, gears, and chassis — due
- The working prototype, for the 15-second test, and a gallery walk with our product team on
- A build log in Google Slides: notebook pages and computations, every prototype version and what changed, CAD screenshots, and build photos
Everything you need to build this — linkage design, the checks to run, how to document it, and how you'll be scored — is on the project page.
